


Creases

by speckledsolanaceae



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alpha Huang Ren Jun, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, M/M, Meet-Cute, Omega Mark Lee (NCT), Omega Verse, Oral Sex, Uncircumcised Penis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:28:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25007707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speckledsolanaceae/pseuds/speckledsolanaceae
Summary: What do you do with your hatred of instinct when Mark Lee's just about the best person you've ever met?
Relationships: Huang Ren Jun/Mark Lee
Comments: 34
Kudos: 375





	Creases

**Author's Note:**

> For Lee, who challenged me to write a trope I genuinely thought I'd never get around to trying.
> 
> 11/14/20 update: fixed some errors and pacing in the second to last scene ♡ I miss these two.

“It’s not like a bra strap.”

“Pardon?”

“Scents aren’t like clothes. It’s not a choice or training. We’re literally biologically attracted to—”

“Yes, well, het men are biologically attracted to boobs which—”

“They shouldn’t be, because they’re not a sexual organ.”

“That’s _nuance.”_

“It’s nurture. They can keep it in their pants with a nip slip.”

“They also can with scents.”

“But it’s _biologically_ more distracting—far more than something like clothing choices.”

“Alright,” Renjun says, finally jumping into the debate and crossing his ankles underneath the plastic chair he’s sitting in. There are five people in the room all sitting around a circular conference table, one recording dock settled in the center with each of them equipped with the small kinds of mics clipped to their shirts. “Let’s imagine for a second that we were all betas, here. Just for a second.”

This proposal earns him a chuckle from the person to his left. A boy two away to his right grimaces for humor.

“No scents, no nothing. We’re in a lecture and one of our classmates comes in with particularly spectacular cleavage,” Renjun says. “How many of us would be able to focus if we actually wanted to?”

“If we really wanted to…” muses one of the participants to his left, then tips their head as if conceding to the implied point being made.

“Right? That’s the thing,” he continues, feeling the pleasant thrill of having everyone’s attention for his piece and confident enough to pull off his argument. “Guy comes in with the most immaculate dick outline and I _might_ just spend a good five minutes thinking about sucking cock, but that’s because I’m lazy about how horny I am and like daydreaming more than I like listening to my professor opine.”

The girl across from him laughs into her hand, pink in the face.

“But if the lecture’s important to me, I’ll either not notice the dick of some other beta dude, or I’ll notice it, be a little baffled and amused for a second, and refocus. Probably tell my friends later if I remember. But then we have the binary.”

“Right,” says the one to his left, and Renjun feels encouraged.

“Okay,” he says, exhaling and narrowing in on his conclusion. “So we have this binary where someone walks in with an uncloaked heat scent, and once it hits me, it doesn’t matter how much I want to hear my professor talking about Cezanne’s degenerative eye disease. I’m going to get distracted, and I’m going to be distracted for quite a good while because not only does my _nose_ find it interesting, but every cell in my body. I react whether I want to or not. Whether I’m focused or not. It’s compulsive.”

“That’s heat scents, though. Not my day-to-day,” says the boy who grimaced.

“Well—” Renjun starts.

“Wait,” buts in the girl across from him, brushing away her amused blush with her fingertips. “Wait, let me take this and if I don’t do it justice, you can correct me.”

Renjun settles back.

“It’s one thing for me to be in the middle of the classroom when an alpha comes in smelling like fresh sweat and strawberry compote—”

“Incredibly specific,” chuckles another participant, chin in her palm.

“—yes,” says the girl, though not blushing for a moment this time. “But I’m in the middle of the classroom and she comes in smelling like that from the front and sits down at the front. It’s really no problem. I probably won’t smell her. But if she sits next to me, she could be two weeks away from her rut and I’ll still smell her all the way up into my brain for a moment, especially since not everyone is going to shower right before every class.

“Now if I’m in heat and she sits down next to me _not_ in a rut but still smelling like that, it’s going to be difficult for me to focus. And there’s going to be a few people in any average-sized class who are in heat or a rut at a time. If any one of us doesn’t cloak, someone’s academic experience is getting nerfed.”

“Cloaking scents isn’t about stifling your self-expression or forcing you into celibacy,” agrees the other girl—the one who’d interrupted. “We’re paying for academia.”

“We’re also paying for a wholesale experience. What if I _want_ to get nerfed?” says the one to his left with their whole chest, and it almost coughs a laugh out of Renjun. He pulls himself together.

“It’s a fun idea until it’s happening every day and you’re failing out of the major you went in debt for,” says the interruptor.

“Also,” Renjun says, “if it’s important enough to you to have your scent out, you can do it outside of academic spaces easily. Just do the adhesive or invest in a shorter-lasting potent counter-scent.”

 _“That,”_ says the grimacer suddenly and with feeling, “brings up the issue of how goddamn expensive cloaks are.”

And the debate continues from there.

By the time Renjun’s stepping out of the building, he has to shake the energy of a lively discussion out of his limbs and fingertips. Going straight to work at the front desk then sprinting to lecture doesn’t feel half bad.

“You were paid to debate the Scent Code,” Jaemin says—not quite a question, not quite a statement—as he leans his forearms on the marble top of the reception desk. He’s set his spray bottle and rag to the side and unless one of Renjun’s bosses come out to obsessively reorganize the stanchions, he’s not going to get caught.

“I did.”

“How much?”

“Not.”

Jaemin laughs, wrinkling his nose in humor. “Did you do well?”

“I’m really considering,” Renjun says, and then the phone rings and he pushes out a breath between his lips, “asking the coordinators for the recording.”

Jaemin grins as Renjun picks up the phone, whispering an, “I would like to hear it.” before collecting his cleaning supplies and leaving Renjun to the person on the other end of the phone.

“Hi, this is the university Museum of Art. How can I help you?” Renjun rattles off, picking at the coiled phone cord with his hands as he nestles the phone between his ear and shoulder.

_“Hi, is this the museum?”_

Renjun bites back a sigh, then repeats his greeting.

 _“Can I set up a tour? I have—”_ They talk rapid-fire for a minute, telling him the who, when, why, and even the how even though they’re asking for a tour _tomorrow_ and everyone needs to call two weeks in advance. He stares in boredom at the way Jaemin rubs children’s handprints off the glass doors.

The person on the other end takes a breath.

“Hey,” Renjun jumps in. “I’m going to have to transfer you to our tour coordinator if that’s okay?” He puts brightness in his voice, but rolls his eyes when Jaemin turns to silently laugh at his predicament.

_“Oh.”_

“Just tell her the same thing you told me and she’ll be able to help you. You can call her Olivia.”

_“Oh, yes, okay. Thank you.”_

“Absolutely,” he says, hitting the transfer buttons, then calls, “Jaemin!” in a half-whisper less than a breath after hanging up.

Jaemin goes from making for the hallway to pivoting immediately and returning to the desk. “Mm,” he hums, pressing his fingernails into the caulk between marble slabs. 

“I need to give your friend their book back.” He’d been lugging the anthology around in his messenger bag for at least a week now, having forgotten to talk to Jaemin about it every time he saw him. He can feel the crick in his back from the extra weight.

“Oh,” Jaemin says, that listening intent in his eyes shifting over to a smile. “You can just give it to him yourself, if you want. He’s back from his internship.”

“Mm, sure.” He can see a visitor make their way toward the desk, but they look the kind of aimless that has him only half convinced he needs to shoo Jaemin away. “Give me his number.”

Jaemin fumbles for his phone and articulates the digits like a patient old man. “Mark Lee,” he tells him. “Do you want to know his status?”

Renjun glances at him and cringes in distaste. “No thanks,” he says, but only realizes Jaemin’s biting his lip in a tease after he’s already gone and said it. “Oh, go push someone else’s buttons.”

And sure enough, once Jaemin’s left with a huff of a laugh, the visitor edges up to the desk with her acrylic nails on full display. “Can you take pictures in the Suh exhibit?” she asks, and Renjun wonders if they could possibly make a sign big enough telling them _no._

He bites back the urge to ask her if the signage is broken because today’s been a good day so far. What goes around comes around, so he instead gives the polite response, expresses his condolences, and only narrowly remembers to plug the number he wrote down into his phone.

* * *

To: Mark Lee

_Hey this is Jaemin’s friend Renjun. I have your western lit anthology._

From: Mark Lee

_Oh woah totally forgot who I gave that to! haha_

_You sure you don’t need it anymore?_

To: Mark Lee

_We only needed it for the first quarter and I took notes, so it’s all good._

_Can you meet with me today or sometime in the next few days?_

From: Mark Lee

_You have it with you? Nice._

_I can meet you after class today if you’re free. I get out at 5_

To: Mark Lee

_5:45 for me :|_

From: Mark Lee

_That’s chill I was going to do some hw in library for a while anyways_

_Evening classes suck haha_

_I mean they’re fine. Waking up early sucks too_

_Sorry idk where I’m going with this haha I’m really tired_

To: Mark Lee

_Waking up sucks period_

_I’ll meet you around 5:50 then? :)_

From: Mark Lee

_Yeah sure! I’ll be on the second floor where the couches are._

To: Mark Lee

_[thumbs up]_

Something about texting Mark in the middle of class has him smiling. Texting is an ass form of communication, but there’s an odd sort of personality slipping right through his “haha”s that would be contagious if he weren’t sitting in a lecture room. Instead, he’s preoccupied with pretending the entire time he’s texting that he isn’t actually being impolite. Just angling his phone between his thigh and jacket just right so the professor doesn’t look at him like he’s rejected her homemade, flavorless chili. 

The rest of the two-hour time slot is a waiting game. A doodling game. A taking-notes-when-it-seems-just-the-right-side-of-relevant game. He likes his classes and likes his professors, but this particular time is spent rehashing an era of art he already knows more intimately than the average student, having written an entire, death-inducing fourteen-page essay on Tang Dynasty art just the semester prior.

5:44 hits and his knee is bouncing under the desk, not for urgency but a vague haze of boredom. He really makes an effort not to seem like he’s dying to get out by the time the professor goes three minutes over.

To: Mark Lee

_Got out late im omw_

He doesn’t look to see if he receives a response, trying to challenge his legs to still make it there by 5:50 anyway without breaking into a jog. The sun is low and all the air is cooling down, sifting through slow bodies and Renjun, who fails his internal goal when he speeds up to catch the library door before it swings closed.

Compulsively, he fears the detectors into the lobby will go off the moment he steps through them, but as usual, they do not. He tries not to look at the campus guard behind the desk as if she’ll know he’ll come back later one book lighter instead of the alternative. It’s silly. His brain is silly.

He doesn’t know why he’s nervous. He’s only meeting Jaemin’s friend.

His clock says 5:49 with no notifications by the time he reaches the stairs, and he takes them at a clip, then spends the time passing bookshelves to calm his breath. When he reaches the couches, there are three people and any one of them could be named Mark. 

One of them is hunched over a book, earbuds in. Another is asleep, neck hanging for what will inevitably be a bad crick. The last is scrunched up in one of the chairs with their phone face-down on the arm.

5:50.

He breathes out just the tiniest “Uh.” No voice because while he might be social, the entire second floor is silent and he’s already making enough noise with the breath coming through his nose.

None of them look up.

He opens up his phone and composes another text message.

To: Mark Lee

_Here!_

The one who’s asleep. Their phone lights up where it’s balanced on their thigh but makes no sound. Renjun quickly steps around close enough to see the galaxy lock screen and just barely catches his own name. His full name even though he’d only offered his given.

It shouldn’t surprise him—it very nearly doesn’t. They share a mutual friend, but the idea of Jaemin talking about him enough and then Mark _remembering_ his family name is really something.

He’s not sure what to do, and he’s left studying the planes of Mark’s angled face for a full twenty seconds at least as he tries to figure out what next.

He doesn’t want to touch him because he feels like that would be invasive coming from a stranger—he wouldn’t want to be jostled awake in a public environment. The library is still so _quiet,_ too, and he neither wants to say his name loud enough to wake him, nor get near enough to his ear because that’s just as bad as touching him.

With weird feelings of reluctance, he pulls the anthology out of his bag and sets it on the arm of Mark’s seat, biting his lip over the way the other’s mouth is pouted in sleep. He recalls Mark saying he was tired—he texted it not too long ago. Maybe he should have known right off the bat that he was the one slumped and slouching against the god-awful upholstery color.

He texts Mark one more time.

To: Mark Lee

_You were sleeping so I left it right next to you_

_Sleep well tonight ok_

* * *

Midway through trying to find his mouth with his chopsticks while reading for one of his classes, his phone blows up about seven times in quick succession. He jabs the corner of his lips and almost drops all of his noodles, hand jumping off the page he’s holding and promptly losing his place, and he stares as Mark Lee busts his own ass for being asleep.

Renjun lowers his utensils and snorts out a laugh. Somewhere in the apartment, Seungmin is singing the lyrics of a musical while Minghao, in the bathroom, sounds like he accidentally knocked down all their shampoo bottles on his way into the shower. It’s a lot of chaos all at once, but he can handle it.

He picks up his phone.

From: Mark Lee

_Oh my god_

_Oh my god Renjun I’m an idiot haha_

_Jesus christ_

_I’ll make it up to you_

_Haha oh my god that must have been so awkward for you_

_Fuuuck_

_I’m sorry_

He wishes the budding percussionist he shared a bathroom with apologized over minor (or major) inconveniences like Mark Lee did.

To: Mark Lee

_LMAO omg it’s fine really_

_There’s nothing to make up_

From: Mark Lee

_God I feel so BAD tho_

Renjun settles his chin in his palm, letting himself smile against his fingertips.

To: Mark Lee

_Did you have a nice nap?_

It’s then that Mark having a galaxy really bites Renjun in the ass because he doesn’t know if the next five minutes spent without a trace of a response are because Mark’s struggling, insulted, or has somehow not seen the message. To cope, Renjun loses himself in his noodles and a dent in his bedroom wall that looks like a quarter moon.

He should probably not tease someone he hasn’t even properly met.

When his phone vibrates in the middle of a bite, Renjun ends up accommodating in the most awkward navigation of his life, cutting off half the noodles and coughing around the mouthful he has while he gets sauce down his chin. He wipes it off with the back of his wrist because the paper towels are in the kitchen and he has nothing else.

From: Mark Lee

_…_

_Haha um yeah._

_I guess._

_Kinda._

_My neck hurts._

_Wait tho are you teasing me I can’t tell_

Renjun can’t explain the cause of the flush that leaks through his entire face. It’s brief and burning and he feels like somewhere in the midst of it, he shouldn’t be laughing, but he is. Mark’s neck hurts. Of course it does.

He wants to meet him.

To: Mark Lee

_Yes and no. I’m glad you got some sleep._

From: Mark Lee

_Haha_

Renjun laughs and covers his face, forcing himself to breathe in before finishing the rest of his response. He presses his tongue between his teeth and has to decide off the cuff if he’s going to flirt or friend.

He’s not a coward by any means, but his gut doles out reason before his romance pulls too hard.

To: Mark Lee

_Let’s meet up sometime and you can like_

_Idk you really don’t have to make it up to me but meeting you would be cool_

He sighs. 

“Meeting you would be cool.” He sounds a little like he’s trying too hard for his own taste, but that’s what playing safe does to a man.

From: Mark Lee

_Hey yeah totally_

_Second chances let’s gettit haha_

He really should have flirted with him.

* * *

The next day, it takes Renjun a full hour in the museum’s upper library office logging in registration contact information for him to realize they’d never actually set a time to meet up. “Damnit,” he mutters, and his coworker looks over in the midst of biting the eraser of her pencil.

“What’s up?” she asks, concern reasonable seeing as it’s not every day he swears at his designated computer screen.

He laughs low and sighs, looking over at her properly and leaning his cheekbone on his knuckles. “Forgot to ask someone out.”

With a wrinkled nose and a smile, she laughs too, turning back to the slideshow she’s putting together. “Well, we have Musevening this Friday. Invite them to that.”

It’s a thought. It’s a _dubious_ thought given how minimally he’ll be available that night—he’ll be at the food table or the galleries or greeting guests and would only feasibly be able to see Mark for a grand minute if he’s lucky. Musevening is an event that happens every four months or so where one of their exhibits is featured, and he supposes there’s some fate in that it’s happening so soon and so conveniently. Perhaps it’s a start, and Jaemin will probably invite a few of his friends anyway. Unless Mark’s an isolated incident of friendmaking, that should make things easy.

* * *

Mark agrees to come, and then it’s just three more days of grueling expectation.

It’s such a weird way to come in contact with someone for the first time—finding Mark asleep in the library with his mouth pouted in sleep. He’s a friend of a friend, and he’s never met him before, though he’s heard of him, and he’d never seen him before. Meeting someone who’s virtually hearsay in his life but being unable to say hello normally is just awkward enough to make him feel like the first time he’ll properly meet Mark is somehow, disproportionately important.

He complains about it.

“You’re thinking a lot about someone you’ve only had three conversations with,” Donghyuck says, sitting all wrong on the apartment couch like doing so is a part of his personality. He’s got his ankles crossed on the arm while his entire back is on the floor. Renjun would step on his chest as karma for being an idiot if he didn’t know Donghyuck would call him an alpha for it.

Renjun scowls at the rice cooker, watching as it counts down slowly. He doesn’t mean it—the scowl. Not really. He’s just trying to figure out why he even _cares._ “He seemed cute,” Renjun says eventually.

“So you’re attracted to him.”

Renjun stares at Donghyuck and his I-think-I’m-clever-face. “That’s reductive.”

Donghyuck groans. “Your big words are gross.”

“I’m _saying_ that not everything leads back to my dick,” Renjun says, and the indicator on the cooker clicks for him. He pulls the two bowls they’d gotten down toward himself. “Or it shouldn’t.” He doesn’t agree with relations being broken down into sexual attraction or the lack thereof—not everyone he takes interest in has to be a zipline to his knot. He already can tell Mark is interesting enough to be anything he wants to be.

“That add-on was sus,” Donghyuck mutters. “It’s not like being attracted to someone automatically voids their personality.”

Out of the cooled pan, Renjun slides their seasoned and fried eggs onto each mound of rice then brings both bowls to the coffee table where their order-in food sits. “I know that.” At least logically, he knows that. “I think I’m just—” He sighs and takes a stab at the container of braised chicken.

“You fuck strangers,” Donghyuck says for him and has to maneuver his body into a proper sit again with some form of grace. He fails.

“I fuck strangers,” Renjun confirms. He doesn’t dabble with friends in his ruts—he’s too afraid of ruining something. He also wouldn’t—can’t, maybe—imagine burdening his rut on someone he actually wants to be with. It seems so invalidating, somehow, that someone he intends to potentially love has to deal with something so mindless and unattractively impersonal.

He’s sure it’ll be something they (the nebulous they—whoever it could end up being, and certainly not necessarily Mark) do eventually, but hopefully on their own terms. _Not_ on the terms of his sex-addled alpha brain when he’s in rut.

He uses the app when he needs it.

“I think you’ll find that fucking someone you like changes things,” Donghyuck says, calling him back to the present with a mouthful of chicken and rice. Renjun thinks he misses the point. He only knows how to fuck someone he doesn’t like and is merely, distantly attracted to for convenience, and even then his brain’s a massive mass of nothing.

Whomever he may come to like would deserve more than that.

“I don’t like him,” he reminds Donghyuck. “I haven’t met him yet. I _think_ I _might_ like him. Just from like…what I’ve seen already.” He pauses and considers breaking his yolk. “I think.”

* * *

The lines for the food table are distressingly long despite the offerings being some of the least troublesome desserts to hand out in about a year. All visitors are only to eat in the main lobby and, luckily, despite years of displayed idiocy, most people tend to intuitively respect that rule.

His job for the next forty minutes is to switch the mini cream buns from the delivery boxes to recycled paper napkins then onto the serving table where the visitors can select their own from two dozen identical buns. They still take three more seconds than they ought to, the line gets ever longer, and sometimes people will ask if there are different flavors even though there are clearly none. It’s a tiny taste of agony, manning the food table.

Like luck has a weird way with him—some strange agenda to give him what it thinks he wants, but only in the smallest of doses—he looks up properly for the first time in maybe fifteen whole minutes when someone says thank you in black and white stripes and belted jeans.

It’s Mark. It takes him a second, but it has to be Mark because it’s not hard to place a face like that, but it’s different seeing him awake and active. Understated, sharp, composed of small, mind-blurring details. He hears one of his art professors rattle off an essay in his head, using his own five-second impressions to explain in six crammed hours why Mark’s face is unique.

He feels jarred. 

He primed his brain, unintentionally, to be attracted to Mark and now he’s paying for it.

“You’re welcome,” Renjun says without thinking, taking in how seeing Mark’s eyes open is another experience entirely. They’re big—not unnervingly so, but in a nearly adorable, glittering way as the overhead ceiling lights and wall windows are captured in a few dots.

Mark smiles, small, close-lipped, and bright, and before Renjun can breathe a single word more, Mark passes out of the line and over to someone waiting for him—Wong Yukhei. That’s Wong Yukhei standing there with his own cream bun dwarfed in his big hand and he didn’t even say _hello._ Didn’t warn Renjun or Mark in any fashion. Maybe he’s not the only one not paying attention.

It takes Renjun three seconds of standing stock still to realize that Mark didn’t recognize him.

If Mark is friends with Yukhei _and_ Jaemin, how on earth do neither of them know each other?

“Renjun.”

He startles out of his trance when his coworker brings him back to reality. 

He’s back to the cream buns, but reluctantly.

* * *

By the time he switches duties, he’s long lost sight of Mark and Yukhei, but he has time to find his phone at the front desk and swipe through his messages as his coworker ribs him for detouring.

“Where are you supposed to be?” she nettles, though not unkindly, as he searches through his notifications.

“Management,” he mutters. “Just a sec.”

From: Mark Lee

_Here!!_

_Dude_

_Will u be upset if I say I’ve never been here before haha_

_It’s sick thooo I’m excited_

_You’re working, rihgt?_

_*right_

_Oh my god am I annoying you_

To: Mark Lee

_No!_

_I just didn’t have my phone on me_

_Are you still here?_

He fumbles for his name tag in the rightmost drawer of the front desk. He never puts it on for events because it’s so incredibly awkward to have a visitor say, “Thanks for everything…Wrenjin.”

It’s a laugh, but he’s on the job and he has to say “you’re welcome” to that kind of thing with a straight face. He wants it on now, though, just in case he runs into Mark again. He also takes out the “Ask Me” button because doing management without it will get him a disappointed look from any one of his bosses.

From: Mark Lee

_Oh cool cool!_

_Saw Jaemin for a sec but didn’t see you_

_We stepped out into the building across but we can come back??_

Renjun feels like he’s lost at something, and that’s a bit much, he thinks.

“Just take your phone with you,” his coworker says, and he can hear the humor and the roll of her eyes.

To: Mark Lee

_No that’s fine!_

_I don’t get off for another hour so if you want to leave that’s ok_

From: Mark Lee

_haha ok_

Renjun almost sags against the narrow countertop in overblown wretchedness. Definitely stabs himself in the chest with the nametag pin, though. He pockets his phone, slips out from behind the front desk, and pushes himself into the crowd to mingle and make sure everything’s going well enough. He feels (controllably) despondent and not hopeful at all, so maybe the contrarian gods of fate will have mercy on the way luck has two-timed his ass.

It seems like it must have no such intentions. He does not hear from Mark again or see a single trace of him, and by the time Jaemin says hello as he’s passing by, all he wants to do is lean his forehead against a wall and be ignored for the rest of the night.

“Did you see Mark?” Jaemin asks, bright, enthused even as he’s switching out the lining in a trashcan.

“No,” he says, then, “I mean, yes. I saw him.”

And Jaemin laughs. He laughs because he was watching Renjun’s face when he said those words and they’ve been friends for four years and he knows him too well to not read his expressions like subtitles. “Renjun,” he says, voice dripping with sympathy, “c’mon.”

Protests rise up within him. “The world doesn’t want me to meet him and now it’s all I want to do,” he gripes, and it sends Jaemin into another delighted set of laughter. “Speaking of which, why is everyone friends with him but me?”

“Internship, remember?” Jaemin says behind his hand, eyes alight with humor, and Renjun feels so fucking dumb. Has all night.

“Damnit,” he says and manages a small laugh for relief, holds his hair, sighs, and leaves Jaemin to do his custodian duties. “Fuck,” he says, this time just for the catharsis of it.

* * *

At nine o’clock, everyone starts filing out, and they have to cajole the people who are leaving to have another bundt cake while smuggling away an entire box for themselves. He’s tasked with bundling up tablecloths from the various setups around the lobby and outside. The twinkle lights are still up and on, saved for last as everyone’s least-favorite cleanup assignment, but after an evening of noise and rampant emotional energies from himself and all the guests, he’s rather soothed by what’s hanging over his head.

“Thanks for inviting me.”

Renjun rams his elbow into the back of a chair and doubles over as pain rings up his entire arm from his funny bone. He gasps up at Mark, alone, holding a choux—nay, the holy grail of choux pastries from the student center’s tiny bakery—and he’s already laughing.

“Shit, oh my god, I scared you,” Mark says, and his laughter feels like warm rain through sunlight. “I’m so sorry, man, oh my god.”

“It’s good,” Renjun manages. “It’s—ah.” He laughs, too. He doesn’t know how he couldn’t. He’s got a bundle of tablecloth up against his chest in one arm and a boy who laughs like rain in his sights and the sound of it is so contagious he can feel it in his sinuses and Mark _did_ surprise him and he’s relieved. He’s relieved to see him. “Did you bring me dessert?” he asks through a tight throat of giggles, and Mark quiets down.

“Yeah! Yeah, this is for you.” He sets it on the bare tabletop, complete with its pastry paper, and gestures at the sitting area and lights. “Do you need help with any of this?” he asks, bowling over Renjun’s opportunity to say thank you.

“Um,” Renjun says, and the pain from his elbow has reduced to a numbness. “I’m getting paid to do it. You really don’t have to.” He gathers the edge of the tablecloth in his arms that has slipped out and begins toward the next table.

“I’ll feel awkward,” Mark says, “like, really, if I just sit here and you’re doing things. Tell me to do something.” He laughs, and once again Renjun enjoys being privy to it.

He concedes and tells Mark to unplug the lights, watching the small space go dark with the moon turning everything pale to a smooth suggestion of flawlessness. It’s a contrast against the winking charm of the little bulbs.

Mark starts to roll up the cord with his elbow as Renjun collects the last tablecloth and sets the entire bundle on one of the benches snug against the tall tree planters. Renjun climbs up near the trunk to disentangle the cord from the branches and unplug the connector, and they continue that process in silence, the looped cords over Mark’s shoulder, until the last tree holding lights.

“You didn’t recognize me at the food table, right?”

Mark looks up to where Renjun is trying to avoid getting a faceful of leaves while unhooking the last strand. “I really didn’t,” he says, and his tone is light with self-effacing tension. “I think I’ve seen, like. One picture of you, maybe. Or like a handful, but I’ve never—I didn’t pay attention. Am now, though.”

He’s not totally sure what Mark means by it, but nonetheless it makes Renjun feel like his face has been pushed into a bushel of leaves anyway.

“You recognized me, then,” Mark supposes.

And Renjun teases, “I wasn’t obvious?” He understands he’s being coy—he’s snatching the available litmus test as soon as it becomes opportune. He understands himself perfectly when he thinks they might be on different pages, and the sooner he’s able to catch onto that, the sooner he doesn’t have to be concerned over any budding feelings.

Mark waits for him to step down from the planter by using one of the benches as stairs, eyes trained on him like he’s either thinking of nothing at all or trying to come up with a response. “I felt less awkward being stared at after I knew it was you.”

The sentence delivery is smooth, though Renjun’s physical capacity to take any of it in is not. He steps on the edge of the bench seat and almost slips. Mark drops a whole handful of cord to catch his arm, a quick “whoa” startling out of his mouth. They both watch the bulbs clatter against the ground, cringing.

None of them break, and Mark has a handful of Renjun’s bicep.

He lets go and Renjun descends the rest of the way.

“Sorry,” he says.

“I think you have good priorities,” is all Renjun can think to say back, and Mark lets out a laugh that rings and glows.

This will be the first of many times that Renjun wishes he could simply pull Mark down and kiss him.

* * *

Meeting up after that evening becomes less of a game of chance and more about badly-veiled intentions. Renjun _makes_ time for Mark, and he gets judged for it.

“Whipped a little fast, aren’t ya?” Chenle says around a mouthful of rice.

Renjun sets his phone down, schooled but only begrudgingly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Jaemin said you met Mark and took to him,” says Chenle, putting his hand in front of his mouth as he talks to prevent shrapnel, probably. Once again, Renjun feels a little peeved that regardless of the internship, he seems like the only one out of that particular social loop. The knowing-Mark loop. He feels cheated. “And you won’t put your phone down for longer than two minutes.”

“You and I weren’t talking,” Renjun says, and he must look defensive because Chenle tilts his chin back, mouth still behind his hand, and gives a short burst of laughter. “Give me a break,” Renjun grouses. “If you wanted to talk I would’ve put my phone away.”

“Chill your hackles,” Chenle chirps, nose scrunched as he tilts back down and stifles himself with another bite of sandwich. The student center eating area chatters around them and Renjun has to stuff the compulsion to look at his phone when it vibrates against the tabletop. Chenle puts his chin in his hands and grins.

“Leave me alone,” Renjun says and attacks the lunch he’s nearly forgotten about. Even cooled down from being in his tupperware all morning, it’s still good.

“I would ask if you know what his status is, but—”

“I’d fucking kill you?” Renjun snaps, and that does it for Chenle. He _laughs_ laughs and it’s embarrassing because he sounds like a dolphin on helium and it turns some heads. “He’ll tell me when he feels like it,” Renjun says, trying to pull Chenle off of cloud nine by lowering his own voice. “It doesn’t matter what he is.”

“Doesn’t it?” Chenle presses even as he cools down and shakes the humor out with his shoulders. “You don’t want to know if he can take your—”

“Shut _up,”_ Renjun hisses, ears burning. “He could be sex-repulsed for all I care.”

“Oh,” Chenle muses, lips curled even worse now, and Renjun can’t feel his own ears for how hard they’re stinging, “you’ve got it bad.”

For a moment, Renjun feels a real urge to take Chenle’s eyes out with his chopsticks but he takes a deep, _deep_ steadying breath and yes, chills his hackles. Chenle laughs again when Renjun doesn’t grace him with a response and instead lifts his phone off the tabletop.

From: Mark Lee

_Boba’s dangerous thooo_

_Those pearls could kill a man!!!_

Renjun feels the way his whole chest clenches in endearment and wants to rub his face raw. Chenle’s right.

“Cute,” Chenle murmurs at an expression Renjun’s probably making that he can’t help.

He’s got it bad.

* * *

Midterms are hell on stilts.

But at least there’s Mark. Mark, who texts him at three in the morning when no one should be awake with, “Yo, ice cream run?”

Technically Renjun should be either sleeping or cramming, and yet he is strolling the empty streets around the 24/7 convenience store, biting down on his second melona. The stars are utterly invisible and even at this hour, there are cars hushing down the far roads, but it’s nice.

“Sorry,” Mark says, “I’m being kind of boring right now.”

Renjun has to disagree. An ice cream run at three A.M. is already off the “boring” map. With Mark as an additional factor, it has no business even breathing on it.

“You don’t have to be doing something for me to be interested in you,” Renjun says, scrunching back more of the popsicle's plastic and nudging a rock in front of him out of the way with the side of his shoe.

Mark rubs through his hair with his free hand, plastic shopping bag disturbing from where it swings at his elbow, and huffs. His hair’s disorganized and swooping in no uniform direction, and Renjun quite likes it. He likes this sweatpants, thin t-shirt, sleepy look.

“Got many exams?” Renjun asks, prodding him in the hope that it will help.

“I already did them all.” When Renjun’s step stutters in surprise, Mark tilts a smile at him. “English major. They’re all papers and next week’s my tri.”

This is the first time Mark’s said anything even edging into talking about the binary zone, and something stiffens in Renjun’s trachea. Technically, no one has to tell professors when their tri-monthlies are, and if they do, no one has to specify whether they’re heats or ruts or not, but it’s a useful card to establish. Professors are obligated to offer extensions or early-takes on any important, fixed exams, and it saves a lot of hysteria so long as students don’t mind the transparency. Renjun’s been lucky in that the few times his rut butted up against an exam week, all of the testing dates were flexible. 

He had his most recent rut about two weeks into knowing Mark and let himself not think about how he was unwilling to use the app to find someone. He’d just suffered with his forehead pressed to his sheets and the aching, rampant urge to chop his own dick off.

“So is this your celebration?” Renjun asks and hurries to suck up a drip of melted ice ready to fall on his knuckles.

“Yup,” Mark says and pops the ‘p.’ “I’m a little burnt out.”

Given the situation, Renjun thinks he ought to feel flattered. “Thank you for thinking of me,” Renjun says, and Mark laughs. It sounds wonderful no matter what hour of the night.

“That part’s easy.”

* * *

They don’t meet for the first few days of finals week, though it isn’t like Mark outright told Renjun that he doesn’t want to see him during his tri. They text, but Mark never invites Renjun to hang, and now, knowing what he knows, Renjun’s too nervous to extend his own offer.

He feels dumb about it, though. It’s not like it’s common courtesy to avoid anyone on their tri—in fact, it’s not even a known courtesy, which brings him right to the point where Jaemin nails his psyche so hard it winds him.

“You’re afraid he’s an omega,” Jaemin says all casual-like over lunch like he didn’t just serve Renjun the emotional equivalent of a throat punch.

Like prey, Renjun freezes, not even daring to do anything but hold the slice of kimbap in his mouth and pray for Jaemin to spare him.

He doesn’t.

“You think it’ll impair your judgment,” says Jaemin, glancing up at him. He’s not smiling like he would if he weren’t being serious, and Renjun’s feeling the Jaemin-brand pressure keenly.

Jaemin waits for Renjun to chew and swallow as he arranges some rice and vegetables onto a square of laver.

“I don’t know if that’s correct,” Renjun replies finally, but he sounds strained and he knows it. Jaemin raises a dark eyebrow before looking elsewhere and eating his seaweed wrap. “I don’t treat you any differently.”

“We’re friends,” Jaemin says carefully around his mouthful, then finishes it properly while Renjun tries to suspend his thought and not have a weird, uncontrollable spiral in public. “You’re not interested in me like that. And if you were,” Jaemin says, and oh, Renjun’s not ready for this, “you’d avoid me like the devil until you didn’t any longer.”

Renjun makes a sound—close to woundedness because of how hard it is to acknowledge the possibility that Jaemin’s right.

“You haven’t asked him out yet, which I know because he’s told me as much,” Jaemin continues, and honest-to-god Renjun wants to run. He didn’t realize he’d be getting a talking-to four hours before his second-to-last exam. They’re also outside on the picnic benches and if anyone walks too close, Renjun _will_ be shrinking away from them. “Or you at least haven’t been upfront with him about your intentions. And he’s fine with it because he’s Mark, but eventually you’re going to find out or he’s going to tell you, and regardless of his status, you’re going to have to deal with it.”

Renjun exhales, looking across the way to where the trees rustle in a warm wind.

“And,” Jaemin says, this time with finality in his tone, “you’re either going to wig out because you’re scared of being a stereotype or you’re going to treat him exactly the same because that’s what you _should_ do and the ideals that you hold.”

Renjun squirms. He steals another breath. He tilts his head and pats the table and cradles his neck and looks away.

Jaemin lets him sit in his discomfort and it’s painful, but it’s not like Renjun hasn’t put him through the wringer before either. This is what best friends do.

Once, even Donghyuck had called him out so hard Renjun had to put the quote in his phone for safekeeping so it would stop haunting him. “You’re like Samson,” Donghyuck had said. “You have all the willpower and drive in the world until someone cuts your hair by calling you a stereotype.”

“You’re good for being informed and careful and conscientious,” says Jaemin finally, gentler this time, and Renjun doesn’t shy away when Jaemin brushes his fingers through the hairs at his nape. “But you probably shouldn’t let it get in the way of your relationship with him.”

“Right.” 

Nerves ripple through his bones like they’re made of jelly, but movement is change.

* * *

It takes him approximately fifteen drafts to send something, and even then he wants to bash his head into a wall.

To: Mark Lee

_Are you up for pizza tonight?_

He wants to cry. He wants to fucking cry and he’s curled up on his bed like a wilted piece of lettuce, staring at his phone as the light dies outside his window. 

Mark answers quickly, though. He always does.

From: Mark Lee

_Omg haha I think I’ll be up for it tomorrow?_

_Unless ur like offering to bring some by_

The burning starts in the hollow of Renjun’s throat and rushes his ears like a mudslide. He feels disrespectful. He feels like a fucking nightmare, actually, or at the very least like he’s in one.

 _Chill,_ he thinks. _Oh my god, chill._

It would be cowardice if he didn’t accept the offer to bring some over, right? He’d still be just as afraid as Jaemin said he was. Mark doesn’t seem like he’ll mind, and therefore it’s an option, and if it were any other night _not_ presumably during Mark’s tri, he’d be all for it. Therefore:

To: Mark Lee

_Would you like me to do that?_

_I can do that._

From: Mark Lee

_Haha I mean_

_Dude it’s okay I’ll cloak_

Renjun stretches his whole body out, stuffs his face in his pillow, and bites out a muted scream. He’s doing this badly. So, so badly.

He didn’t even say anything and Mark’s already reassuring him that _he, Mark,_ won’t make things a problem as if _he, Renjun,_ isn’t causing problems just because he wants to push himself not to be a fucking disaster and wow! Look at that! It backfired.

But now he has to follow through.

Rebooting on willpower and anxiety alone, he brings his phone back up to his face.

To: Mark Lee

_Toppings?_

_Like on a pizza_

_Do you like sweet potato?_

From: Mark Lee

_Haha bro I got u_

_Um those big tomato slices might make me wanna hurl rn yk_

_But otherwise I’m good w whatever_

With a massive inhale, Renjun accepts the inevitability that he just flung himself into head-first and sinks into his mattress.

To: Mark Lee

_I’ll text you 5 to_

From: Mark Lee

_Can you make that ten haha_

* * *

The warm box really doesn’t help his sweaty hands. It makes a hollow, half-hearted thudding sound when he switches from two palms to one so he can draw out his phone. He’s acutely aware of how he’s blowing things out of proportion. He’s not exactly prone to doing so, but he’s unsure how to cope with this particular personal upset.

He wants to break the right rules.

He wants to not be _this._

A conceptual disappointment before execution that he’s been fighting against, if only theoretically, for approximately twenty-one years because he hasn’t yet even attempted to traverse grounds where he knows there are wires to trip. Mark’s the first person he’s ever wanted to properly be with, and he doesn’t know how he even got here.

He doesn’t want to be an alpha, is all. He doesn’t want this entire legacy of dick-for-brains abuse and thoughtlessness, but he fucking has it and he has to live with it and he likes Mark. He likes Mark and he has to figure out how to be normal without being a carbon copy of all the mistakes that have borne his genes to the present. Mark could be anything but a beta, and Renjun won’t know it until he gets his shit together.

First, he texts Mark thirteen minutes after his ten-minute warning because he lagged up the stairs in a panic.

Then, he knocks.

He holds his breath when the knob swivels then catches himself in self-judging ludicrousness. Months ago he made the argument that pheromones are chemical and can’t be helped—that the safeties put in place are essential, and he’ll stand by that. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have the willpower to keep his head.

Renjun pushes the air out of his lungs so forcefully that he initiates a coughing fit into his open elbow right as the door opens.

Mark looks roughly the same, and Renjun feels like an idiot for thinking that he might not. He’s got basketball shorts on and a loose-fit tee. His hair is neat, his eyes are clear. The only difference Renjun can see is a narrow flush staining his cheekbones and the filmy, plastic-y sheen of a cloak under his ears and on the insides of his wrists—and Renjun shouldn’t be looking. He shouldn’t be trying to find these things. This is supposed to be normal. 

Mark gives a small laugh upon opening the door to Renjun’s stifled fit. “Dude,” he says and reaches to steady the pizza box, “you okay?”

Nodding with a pathetic attempt at clearing his throat, he says, “Yeah, sorry.” while taking in the way Mark’s eyes are smiling at him. “I ordered, um, I actually don’t remember?” Renjun tries to laugh and it comes out like a wheeze.

Mark gives a little snort of humor then lifts the lid with his steadying hand moving under the box. His thumb grazes Renjun’s. Renjun tries to pretend nothing has happened. “Oh nice,” Mark says. “Am I stealing all of this? Or?”

The impulse to say yes is there, then Renjun stops himself—wonders why the hell he’s being like this. “No,” Renjun says, managing a laugh, “are you kidding? No.”

Mark hums, letting go of the bottom of the box to slide a slice out for himself, giving Renjun a bright, challenging look. With the tip near his lips and the door still halfway open, he says, “You come here while I’m still on my tri because you miss me and aren’t offering the entire box?”

“That’s bold,” Renjun says, almost dumbly, and laughs with amused accusation, some of the tension in his chest pulsing and strangling him. “You’re manipulating me.”

“You’re being weird,” Mark shoots back and takes a bite, and Renjun finally sees what he ordered—bulgogi. Safe. It was a safe, mindless choice, presuming Mark wasn't vegetarian, which he evidently isn't. “In general,” Mark corrects behind his shining wrist. “Not just right now.”

It’s probably not the best time to tell what it is exactly that has Renjun tangled up, but he can give some of it away. “I just don’t want to intrude, but I don’t want to like, act like you only exist outside of…” Renjun can’t gesture because he has both hands on the box again, phone wedged up against his palm. “Do you want to steal half?”

Mark takes him in with measuring eyes while eating most of the slice in one go then pushes the door open the rest of the way with the edge of his shoulder. “I need to grab a bag or something,” he says after a swallow. “Come in if you want.”

When he slips into the apartment, he has one hand lagging on the door’s edge for the benefit of Renjun’s brain lag. Renjun pushes himself to catch the door at the last minute with his toe, maneuvering the box so it doesn’t slam into the doorway.

He’s conscious of every breath he takes until he notices every single apartment window open, and then he feels helplessness. He stands there in the entryway as he realizes that he still knows nothing. That he won’t stumble across the answer privately. He has to ask Mark. He has to ask Mark to know what his status is just like he would anything else.

He inhales deep and tastes spring in the dusty birdsong air, stepping into the apartment more properly. They’ve talked about Mark’s roommates before, but for some reason it still shocks him to see one out on the tiny sitting room’s couch. God help him be less on-edge.

“Hey,” he blurts out and they raise a hand in greeting with a small, reserved smile, book propped open in their lap.

The roommate situation is moderately complicated in the academic setting, but the windows-open solution is a common one—sometimes even in the summer if it’s a co-status apartment. Everyone is promised individual rooms with campus dorms, beta or no, but the apartments are a little more diverse. If Renjun looks down the hallway past the entrance, he can see five doors facing each other three-by-two, and as far as Renjun knows, Mark has three roommates. It checks out.

Once again, he feels like he shouldn’t be scoping things out like this, though.

He straightens up and makes his way over to the small kitchen table straddling the sitting room and the dinked-up tiles of the cooking area where Mark’s rifling through the upper cabinets for a flat tupperware with the pizza crust between his teeth. His shirt doesn’t quite slip up past the cinch of his shorts as he reaches for the top shelf and slings the right one out from atop everything else.

Sliding the pizza box onto the table, Renjun presses up against the edge when Mark’s roommate gets up to pass him for the hallway.

“I’ll save some for you, Seungkwan,” Mark says as he lifts the lid up again.

Seungkwan gives him a thumbs up and a light “thank god” before opening the door and leaving the two of them alone. Renjun should be grateful. He is, somewhat, but he should be _more._

“Why are you so nervous?” Mark asks him point-blank, and Renjun has to bite his tongue to keep from wincing. “I told you I was gonna cloak,” he says, and it sounds almost sullen before he stuffs the rest of his crust in his mouth and applies himself to setting aside half the pizza for himself. So close at opposite sides of the table, Renjun can almost smell _something,_ but he doesn’t know what it is and it mixes with the still-warm pizza to an indistinguishable effect. Instead, he gets a full view of the splay of Mark’s eyelashes against his sharp cheekbones.

Renjun doesn’t know what to say. The sun is seeping through every crevice in the room from the wide windows, leaving Mark lit up and plain as day. There are dishes in the sink and the tea towel on the sparse countertop is crumpled and faded. The grain of the table is dark with use. Mark isn’t looking at him.

Renjun weighs what’s more important to him between the two things he needs to know, and the anxious pinch in his chest is almost painful. He doesn’t want to be unprepared and blindsided in the midst of choosing Mark, but that has nothing to balance on if he’s not even with Mark in the first place.

“I wanted to know if you would be interested in going out with me,” Renjun breathes, and when Mark looks up with bewilderment, he rushes to explain himself. “I know i-it’s probably like. I know we’ve been kind of doing it already but I don’t know what page you’re on and Jaemin told me I might be leading you on and I really don’t want to do that. If you’re not interested—maybe I’ve read everything wrong? I think—I thought you were interested in me, maybe.”

Mark laughs. It rises up through his throat and scrunches through his nose and totally winds Renjun. He _likes_ Mark. Desperately. “Sure,” Mark says, easy, dipping his head to laugh down at the pizza. He takes one more slice than his agreed-upon portion before closing the lid and biting into that one, too. Hands free with the slice clamped between his teeth, he clicks the tupperware closed and scrunches his nose at Renjun again.

“As in you’ll go out with me?” Renjun clarifies. The entire back of his mouth is imitating the function of his heart.

Mark nods, chews, swallows, and Renjun’s never felt so encumbered by the existence of food before. “Yeah. As you said, we kinda already were.” He picks up the tupperware and turns for the refrigerator, prying it open with his pinky and foot. “Thanks for being explicit with me though. I was kinda wondering.”

“Sorry.” It spills out of his mouth on instinct, but it’s the right thing to say anyway, probably. “I haven’t tried an actual relationship before.”

Mark makes a sound of acknowledgment and tips the door closed again. “I thought you were waiting for me to ask you instead,” Mark says, and Renjun flushes so hard with something so close to humiliation that his hand raises itself to hide his face on instinct. Seeing him makes Mark huff a laugh again. “I don’t know when I would have gotten around to it,” Mark admits, and Renjun realizes belatedly that Mark’s fidgeting when he starts to reopen the box with his free hand and close it more properly, cardboard sides tucked in. “Last time I asked someone out first—” He sucks in a breath and tilts his head. He simply places the rest of his pizza in his mouth and says nothing else, rubbing his fingertips into his palm to wipe away the grease.

Renjun thinks he knows.

But he feels like he shouldn’t. He feels like making assumptions is so, so inappropriate, but he’s stuck here in a position where it’s dawning on him very slowly that Mark knows he’s an alpha and has already reconciled it.

“Pretend I didn’t just ask,” Renjun blurts blindly and Mark chews and swallows and stares at him a little like he’s grown another head. “I’ll—I’ll go back to being awkward again and you can reach out to me and ask me out and—”

“That’s dumb as shit!” Mark bursts into a laugh so strong it tips him forward slightly and Renjun flinches in the urge to touch him. “That’s fucking stupid, man. You asked me out first. So what?”

Again, Renjun finds himself blushing. “I don’t know.”

“We’d have the same result, right? I don’t feel like, slighted or anything,” Mark says, leaning on the table now, leaning in but not in _that_ way—not in the way that makes Renjun think he’s supposed to kiss him. He’s leaning in like there’s energy fizzling under his skin. Like he’s uncomfortable but stronger than it. Renjun _likes_ him. “You haven’t been treating me like a dumb bitch,” Mark muses, the corners of his lips curling in thought. “If anything you’ve been—” He pushes out a breath, eyes-contact becoming a little more direct, a little more testing. “You’re like. Prostrating. Lately.”

Renjun burns. He’s been burning, but now he feels like he’s directly self-immolating. He wonders if it’s shame or if it’s the humiliating condition of being seen. He hopes it’s not shame. He doesn’t want to feel shame for catering to Mark. Nonetheless, Renjun gasps, “Is that a bad thing?” and a laugh escapes him. It’s the laugh he doesn’t like. The one that makes him feel like he’s naked in front of a crowd.

Mark raises his hand in a motion that looks like he’s about to claw the cloak off his skin, but he jolts the motion away and presses his palm against the back of one of the kitchen chairs. “No, dude,” he says. “It’s weird and endearing and I think I need you to leave.”

It’s sudden, it’s brusque, and it slashes electricity down Renjun’s spine like he’s been tased. “Oh my god,” he says, and Mark pulls a face. “Sorry,” Renjun wheezes and fumbles to take the pizza box up in his hands. He leaves quickly without Mark needing to shoo him out, closes the door himself, and reels over what went down alone, the open breezeway of Mark’s apartment complex yawning and empty.

* * *

To: Mark Lee

_I should have double-cloaked I’m so sorry_

From: Mark Lee

_Haha I meeeean maybe_

_It wasn’t a problem until you started like_

_You know_

To: Mark Lee

_???_

From: Mark Lee

_Uhhhh_

_When you like_

_Blush_

_Your skin heating up kinda_

_like_

_Your smell is more distinct_

_When you’re warm_

_Idk I was sensitive_

_To that_

_haha_

_Sorry if that’s weird haha_

Renjun stares at the slew of messages on his phone from the absolute non-safety of his own apartment complex lobby where two other people are also getting their mail. He wipes his hands on his shorts because he’s kind of clammy, actually, and god, yeah, that makes sense. He really…he really should have cloaked topically like Mark had. It’s been fairly obvious that they both take the chemical cloaks, though Mark’s reasons for doing so are obviously unapparent to Renjun. 

The topical adhesives are convenient during the brief respites while in heats or ruts and allow just about anyone to walk around for a bit without triggering any reactions. The majority of the student body only used topicals, though, since they were more than functional for day-to-day usage and the chemical ones were often complicated. Sometimes those could cause breakouts or rashes or strange allergies, but they tamed scents down to the bare minimum. Anyone would have to get up close on a normal day to lift a scent off of Renjun and he didn’t have to dish out a couple hundred per year. The only other option was counter scents, and those were an expensive process to get just right and were stingingly annoying to the olfactories otherwise—like tasting cheap vodka.

Either way, he was thinking about all the unnecessary things before meeting up with him, then fell on his ass for the one thing that would have actually been helpful in that encounter—for Mark, at least.

There’s no excuse, to be honest. Even alphas react badly to other alphas during a rut if their scent gets under their skin. It’s a territory thing. Which is like…directly offensive to Renjun’s sensibilities, but that’s his fucking life.

He presses his forehead to one of the rectangles in the column of mailboxes, closes his eyes, and prays for a brain.

“Sorry, excuse me,” says someone, and Renjun jerks to attention and out of the way of the person he’s blocking, mumbling an apology. He feels heat behind the skin of his chest and he’s self-conscious of that response, now.

He has to respond to Mark, but he struggles to just _explain_ himself, which he feels he desperately needs to do. _“Kind of falling apart ngl,”_ he starts to text, then, _“I’m really,”_ then, _“I really don’t want to be just a,”_ and—

To: Mark Lee

_It’s not weird at all._

That’s all he’s got.

* * *

When he meets Mark after his last final, everything is normal. Mark’s wearing cuffed jeans, a neat shirt, and a smile, and Renjun’s too exhausted to fight himself over the genetic makeup of his own body. They sit on the lawn in one of the curated nature spots outside the library as the clouds turn purple above the low-hanging sun.

“How’d it go?” Mark asks him, unlacing one of his shoes to knock some grit out onto the grass. Renjun appreciates his rainbow socks.

“It went,” Renjun sighs, and Mark snickers into his shoulder, then apologizes without weight. “How was your…”

“My heat?” Mark says and looks out of the corner of his eye as he slips his shoe back on and attends to the laces. Renjun takes a long, slow breath in. He nods. “Boring as fuck, thank you for asking.” Mark’s voice is heavy with mirth and self-deprecation. “Christ I’m tired of them.”

“Yeah,” Renjun says, response pale compared to what he should probably be managing. He knew, and now he knows for sure that Mark's an omega. It doesn’t smite him off the face of the planet, but he is suffering a little.

Mark gazes at him, eyes aglitter and foot down, knees slightly apart, elbows on his thighs with his t-shirt sleeves rolled just slightly. “You can say it,” he prods, and Renjun isn’t quite sure which thing Mark expects him to say out of the mini tornado of words in his head. There’s the drastic one that seems way too left-field and out of nowhere for how anxiety-ridden Renjun is about this, and then there’s the one that he’s wanted since the beginning.

“I want to kiss you?” Renjun says, and Mark buckles forward over his knees and laughs so hard it tremors through his back. Renjun is not and will never be immune, so it grips his lungs and pulls, and he’s laughing, too, even though he’s dead serious.

“God,” Mark wheezes. “Jesus fuck, Renjun.”

When Mark rights himself and leans over, he places his palm on Renjun’s knee and everything in his body flares up like a beacon. Mark inhales through his nose. And smirks.

Renjun thinks that’s unfair. That’s unfair. He’s upset about it, actually.

“It’s just a kiss,” Mark says even though it obviously isn’t and he’s so close Renjun can feel his exhale against the corner of his mouth.

“I mean,” Renjun says, and his skin prickles when Mark cups his nape with his fingers and presses his palm into his knee. There’s a whine in his nerves and muscles running relays up and down his thigh, but he leans in anyway and silently begs Mark to nudge his lips apart with his own.

Renjun’s kissed before, and this feels no technically different, but it does. 

Mark kisses like he has boundaries and expectations set up and intends to push them if only slightly, and maybe Renjun should be worried that they’re kissing very openly on campus, but he initiated this sequence of events by being vanilla, bare-minimum mess, so he obviously wouldn’t have it any other way. He raises his hands to cradle Mark’s face, thumbs on his cheekbones and fingers behind his ears where his hair is shorter and soft. He tastes pine nuts and green rosemary and morning dew from Mark’s parted lips.

The sigh Mark presses into his mouth shorts a circuit near Renjun’s lungs and he wants to tip all the way back into the grass and bushes. Lace his hands at the small of Mark’s back and feel his tongue in his mouth and ask him if he really tastes like traces of cranberry and fig and pepper like he’s been told.

When Mark breaks the kiss, Renjun’s skin buzzes. He’s forced to blink through a haze he neglected to anticipate. Mark ducks his head and presses his lips to Renjun’s pulse and his entire world flips sideways and ceases to support itself. He just tries not to tremble.

“I don’t know shit about anything,” Mark murmurs, and neither does Renjun. He just knows the way his fragile skin vibrates against the touch of Mark’s lips and the very, very brief and nervous glance they get from a passerby passing by faster. “But you taste complicated.”

The laugh rises in his lungs, gets stuck, and then bursts out almost like a sob. He’s breathing again, but it’s fretful, and he tips down to bump noses and slot his lips with Mark’s again. Pine, rosemary, morning, something rising deeper.

Renjun breaks the kiss this time, blinking and pressing his knees together against Mark’s thumb where it rests on his inseam. He swallows, breathes, and Mark smiles slow, the brightness peeking quietly in the muscles of his face. “You make me happy,” Renjun somehow finds the words to say. “I think I like you.”

“Damn,” chuckles Mark, and his laugh so close to Renjun’s lips feels overwhelmingly sweet, “and I thought you were just playing around.”

* * *

Eventually Renjun says it outright. “I’m serious about this. I’m not just going to…fuck you.”

“I noticed,” says Mark. “I’m into it.”

There’s a pause as Mark bites the cap off his highlighter, jerking his head back before the motion rebounds and jabs a green streak across his cheekbone. They’re in the social part of the library—food and drinks allowed, chatter encouraged, and Renjun can talk about fucking without someone nearby tensing up and staring at him.

“But,” Mark says plainly as he highlights a line on the document under his palm, “I’m super into you, so unless you’re not into sex, I’m going to like, be dropping hints.”

Renjun tries desperately not to flush and also not to get a stiffie in the middle of the library when he knows chemical cloaks only work so well. “I like sex,” Renjun says quickly. “I’ve fucked people.” It sounds like something someone would say when they haven’t, in fact, fucked people, and now he’s blushing anyway.

Across the table, Mark’s eyes flick up to meet his, then back down, nose wrinkling in a sort-of smile. “Cool. Gonna choose not to feel, like, envy over that or something.”

Renjun breathes in a difficult breath, reigns in some confidence, and says, “None of them were you, though.”

Mark gags into his document, and Renjun’s chest opens up with a huff like a rusty lockbox as he has the privilege of making Mark laugh.

* * *

The day Mark lets Renjun into his bedroom isn’t a subtle one, but it comes with takeout and gongcha (despite the danger of tapioca pearls), so it’s inherently primed for loopholes if needed. The plastic bags crinkle as Mark sets the two takeout boxes down. He punches his straw through the plastic film on his cup, scoots up against the side of his bed, and says, “I really debated whether I should clean my room or not for you.”

“I really can’t tell either way,” Renjun says, tipping his drink from side to side to blend the layers before taking his straw out, “I don’t know what the standard’s supposed to be.”

Mark’s room is small, obviously, and casual. The bed is made and there aren’t clothes on the floor, but there is a hoodie in the low-hanging scoop chair he has in the corner and his laundry basket is out. There’s a pile of books by the door, dust lining the wall trim, and Mark had to put his guitar away as soon as they got inside.

It smells like him. It smells so much like him that Renjun had to actively banish the memories of kissing Mark from piling up in his entire body. There’s a deeper undertone, too, but Renjun’s scared of letting his nose chase that rabbit because he’s pretty damn sure Mark has the devil-may-care to call him out if he tents in his jeans.

He’s halfway lowered to a sit across from Mark until he’s given an inexplicable look from the other—somewhere between amusement and condemnation. His reformed decision to sit next to Mark is a win-win, really, but now he’s hyper-conscious. The rosemary is so much greener the closer he is to Mark, like he could press his fingertips to his skin and come away with soft oil and powder and hot sunshine.

“So,” Mark says, and the hairs on Renjun’s nape stand on end. Mark reaches for the boneless fried chicken, as if to stall just a little longer. “I’ve been in a couple of relationships and—” He checks Renjun’s face, and Renjun tries to remain inscrutable. Mark isn’t his. He can love and be fucked and whatever and all. Mark seems okay with this, because he continues. “—and it’s like. Fuck first then fall, you know?”

Renjun doesn’t know personally, but he does by every other way of the experience. He’s seen Jaemin get in with an alpha and go sick with stress because of the meaningless sex. He’s seen his classmates and peers share stories like they’re common. He’s seen the movies, heard the narrative, been drilled into like a pocket of rotten wood. Staking claims, satisfying urges, maybe fall, nothing more. Nothing more.

He wonders if he’s complicit by using an app from time to time during his ruts to find someone to fuck just to get it over with. If the senselessness and artificial passion of a hormonal mind has rendered him tainted somehow.

“I know,” he says, because it’s close enough.

“I’m not complaining when I ask this,” Mark assures, thigh pressed up against Renjun’s. “I’m not,” he repeats, “but I feel like you’re thinking a lot and, like, dude.” He laughs, chin tilting forward for a moment. A strand of hair crosses his eyelashes, and Renjun curbs the urge to reach his lips for Mark’s temple above the line of the glasses he’s wearing. Sweet, round, his eyes bigger and clear and sometimes so earnest to the point that Renjun forgets what the fuck his brain’s meant to be used for. “You’ve said as much. That you’re serious about this. I just want to understand why you like, don’t want to.”

He’s being looked at like that now—the earnest, just-after-rain puddle eyes. Renjun breathes out and sinks forward only slightly before stopping and searching his hand at his side for his gongcha. Mark glances at his lips, smiles with the corner of his mouth, and eats the piece of chicken he’d grabbed for himself.

Renjun collects his mind over a prolonged sip of milk tea. “It’s not…trauma or anything,” Renjun says finally, and Mark sucks the sauce from the chicken off his fingertips with his gaze on the side of Renjun’s face. “I just really hate, like…I don’t want to be a hunk of sweaty meat that just _takes.”_

Mark inhales a laugh aborted before it gains traction, reaches around to cradle Renjun’s jaw, and kisses his cheek. There’s a fizzle in his heart that his skin imitates lamely at the show of affection.

“You’re not just,” Renjun says, and lets Mark tip his face toward his nose, his lips, his round glasses, “a loose hole.”

When Mark’s nose scrunches and he pushes out a huff against Renjun’s face, Renjun smiles on instinct alone, though it feels drawn even to him.

Renjun gets a kiss on the corner of his mouth and tries not to chase it when Mark lets go of his jaw. His skin tingles everywhere he’s been touched.

“My parents courted each other,” Mark shrugs and pushes the box of fried chicken toward Renjun. Renjun forces himself to eat something even though he has to look away from Mark’s expression to stop from missing the food entirely. “As far as I know, it wasn’t violent. Might’ve been. I don’t know if my dad consented to the entire thing, but they love each other just fine, now. He loves my mom just fine.”

In lieu of not immediately knowing what to reply, Renjun peels back one of the cream sauces for his piece of chicken. Renjun feels like the air has friction, and he’s trying not to rub up against it too much. He can hardly taste the chicken when he eats the piece he has and sucks the sauce off with his teeth and mouth.

He doesn’t have time to think and idle in any other ways, though, because Mark is jumping in again, energy a little tightly wound this time so Renjun can kind of smell it sizzle like water dissolving on a hot pan. “I’m—I’m consenting, you know. I—” It’s nerves. There are nerves and Renjun feels them pluck marionette strings up his spine. “I get, now, that you’re serious about this, but, dude, I don’t know what to expect, and I don’t know about you but I kind of want to fuck.” Mark takes in a big breath, ears flush and mouth twisted, while Renjun’s still a little blown away. “Like I dunno if you’ve got a kind of ideal or something, and I’m kind of nervous about doing something wrong?”

“You’re not,” Renjun says before he can even take in any air. “You’re not doing anything wrong. You can do anything. I don’t—”

“That’s not how relationships work, though?” Mark blurts. “Am I a-a brainless, loose hole if I just kind of want you to fuck me because I’m attracted to you and like you? Like, does that turn you off? Because I can—I can keep it in my pants, I guess. You—you said you’re into sex. I really like you—”

“Mark,” Renjun gasps, almost dizzy with a scent he’s having a hard time explaining. It’s like something’s gone a bit acrid in the air between them. He can feel himself, too, pinging sharply like Mark whacked his knuckles into the strings of his guitar, but they’re in his chest and throat and head. “I’m sorry,” he says, and intercepts Mark’s hands by catching his wrists because it looks like he’s about to tug on his hair. “Do you want me to come onto you? I just—I don’t want to be dominant because—because I’m like, born like this. I’m just scared of ignoring what you need because of my, like, instincts to dominate or something.”

“Sometimes chemistry is all instincts too, though,” Mark says with his wrists warm in Renjun’s hands, and it’s blunt. It’s blunt and Renjun’s stunned for a moment. “How am I supposed to know you like me if you won’t, like, initiate shit because you’re too busy repressing everything?”

“Oh,” Renjun exhales, “but I need you to know that I like you without fucking you, Mark.” Saying it out loud sounds so absurd, so stupid, that he can’t help but laugh. “I like you,” he says, plying himself to the words in earnest. “We can fuck if that’s what you want or we can wait, but I like you, and I’ll—if you—if I want to kiss you, should I? I’m attracted to you. I want to do it all the time.”

“Do it,” Mark says, sitting there with his back to the side of the bed and his glasses and ruffled hair and near-panicked eyes.

Renjun moves their gongcha and boxes out of the way. He places his hand on the ground between Mark’s bent knees, turns, and knocks up against his glasses when he pulls him in by the neck. “Fuck, I’m sorry,” he whispers, and Mark’s laughing, again, but against his lips this time. He tastes piquant and odd, and then opens up with the soft note of something sweet that Renjun didn’t know was there.

Renjun hesitates a moment before drowning. He holds his breath, eases up, closes his lips against a fear of something. Something he sees when he looks down at the tendons in his hands as he fucks some beta on the sheets he only uses for his rut. He hates the smell of himself—the sharp notes of sour, raw cranberry and a hard, hated feeling of loosening his tight grip on who he wants to be.

From the ground between them, Mark raises his hand, grips the dip in Renjun’s waist, and tugs. Not on his waist, though. He tugs something less than physical, and he tugs it hard. For Renjun, it’s like he’s slipped on wet tile inside his head while holding a million things in his hands.

He spills, experiences a shudder like warm, sparkling water has been poured down over the crown of his head. Mark inhales, lips drifting off Renjun’s mouth as his head tilts back and he takes in air. Renjun watches the stretched column of his throat.

“Fuck,” Mark breathes. “Fuck, you smell so interesting.”

Renjun chokes on a hazy laugh. He’s been on a chemical cloak since he presented at sixteen, swapping between various brands until he and his parents found one that didn’t give him xeroderma or hives. It made him sick with nerves back then—having this thing he didn’t know how to control and still technically can’t. This rolling sheet of pheromones that projects the emotional states he liked to keep under wraps even then. He's never wanted to be anyone but himself, within his power, within his control, being the right person with the right intentions.

His scent only truly broke through for his ruts.

And now.

Now, as Mark’s throat works and his eyelashes flutter.

“Is that a bad thing?” Renjun whispers, lifting the hand on the ground to claw at Mark’s knee and try not to lose his sense of place with the weird light-headedness he’s experiencing. He can almost smell himself. Sharp, heavy. He takes a breath that aborts when Mark lands a hand against his sternum.

Mark’s blinking amidst a strained laugh. “No,” he murmurs back, and moves. He shifts entirely and Renjun’s hands fall away from their purchases as Mark pushes on his thighs to lower Renjun’s legs and place his knees on either side of his hips.

The calluses from playing guitar press gently against Renjun’s face where he cradles him. He has this boy looking down at him with his glasses sliding down his nose, and before Mark can tilt his head back to rectify it, Renjun lifts his hands to gently extract them from behind his ears.

Mark thanks him with a kiss. Renjun lets the hand holding Mark’s glasses fall, wire frames resting on the carpet, Mark lifted just enough off his lap so Renjun can breathe, teeth on Renjun’s lower lip. Renjun angles his head for him, noses bumping for only a moment, skin buzzing, lungs rising and falling like a buoy under waves.

The sweep of Mark’s tongue between his parted lips sets his scalp alight as he lets his one free hand slide up the tight slant of Mark’s thigh. He’s painfully conscious of his skin heating up lately, but there’s no helping it, really. Renjun just lets himself become a little star dying in reverse, folding Mark into his lap and feeling him hot against him, cool like dew and aloe and smoky like singed rosemary.

He presses his thumb into the crease of Mark’s thigh and Mark straightens, sinking the small of Renjun’s back into the hard edge of Mark’s bed frame, the seam of the mattress digging into his shoulders and neck and his heart grabbing his ribs until he fights to breathe.

He’s swimming in Mark’s scent and that deeper something, the heavy something, when they break to slow down. Every lungful is more Mark. He’s never done this before, shaky and unsteady and overheated and strangely limbless.

When Mark brushes his lips down his cheek, Renjun tilts his head for him, angling his jaw up for Mark to be able to rub his lips and suck where his scent is leaking out until his skin’s pink and stinging.

“When’s your rut?” Mark murmurs under his ear, eyelashes skimming his lobe in a soft, lulling blink.

“Two weeks,” Renjun says and hugs Mark’s hips closer, sliding his forearms up the plane of his back.

“What are you going to do?” Mark lifts his lips off Renjun's neck and Renjun opens his eyes to a room tinted purple from having them closed against the sun. He feels like he’s thrumming, and the only thing he can compare it to is how he feels during his rut, but softer. Things feel hot and hazy and warm in this room with Mark in his arms.

Renjun takes a long breath in, feels the cool sense of morning dew trickle down his throat, and holds Mark as he tilts forward off the hard edges and seams just to kiss him again. Mark grabs at his shoulders to steady himself, laughing against the press of Renjun’s lips.

“I don’t know,” Renjun murmurs stiffly against Mark’s lips. Pleasure has started zipping softly through his muscles. “Will it be too fast?”

“S’kinda pathetic to think of you masturbating or finding someone else when I’m right here, bro,” Mark says, still stifling a laugh against Renjun’s mouth even though it’s inconvenient (delightful).

“I can be pathetic,” Renjun says, gently letting go with one arm to push the fried chicken farther away. He parts his knees and lowers Mark to the carpet where the tips of his hair swoop back and touch a box against the wall. Mark’s eyes are shining, and Renjun knows he should probably be tasting takeout when he lowers himself to kiss Mark as deeply as he does, but all he tastes is pine nuts and rosemary and morning dew and the tiniest hint of salt. He uses his forearms to brace himself, and the salt he tastes makes him shake.

He breaks the kiss and noses at Mark’s jaw, his ear, the soft skin that protects Mark’s secrets so badly. “I’m okay with that,” he admits again, “if it’s too fast.”

“Your call,” Mark says, stretching under the attention. There’s sweet citrus, too, and then that something—something deeper, and it gets into Renjun’s head that he craves it. He wants to hold it in his mouth and let his teeth softly break it until it floods his tongue.

Skin.

His mind lags, slows, the arc of Mark’s breath in soft and flowing and expanding.

_Skin._

Renjun inhales sharply through his nose, the placidity in his head breaking like a rock has shattered smooth glass, and his head clears all at once.

Mark lies under him with his eyes wide like a doe, meeting Renjun’s rigid and frozen gaze, and then Mark melts, raises his hand, and laughs against the curl of his fingers. “Did I get you?” Mark asks, still laughing, and Renjun feels both warmth and offense. “Please don’t bite me,” Mark says smoothly, speaking through a set of giggles. “You haven’t even had sex with me yet.”

 _“Fuck_ you,” Renjun says warmly, head still spinning slowly, but now he’s awake and…rather than panicked, he’s amused. “That’s not happening even when I do have sex with you.”

The taste of inevitability in that statement doesn’t escape him, but Mark’s face just crinkles and brightens, and Renjun shakes a little as he kisses his chin where shaving has made him a little rough.

“I’m really overwhelmed,” he murmurs into Mark’s throat, and he can feel the vibration of Mark humming in confirmation against the nerves of his lips.

“Your call,” Mark says again, a promise this time.

“I’ll think about it,” Renjun promises in turn, and settles himself gently down to lie against Mark’s chest.

* * *

He thinks about it. Painfully, almost, and he wonders if he really is repressed. Mark didn’t say that _outright,_ but it checks out when he spirals three days later on top of his bedcovers with his hand down his cutoff sweats and the memory of Mark rubbing his lips on his neck pulsing sensations out in his head.

There’s pleasure shivering up his side that he’s trying to curb when he slips his phone onto the pillow beside his left ear. Even with none of his roommates home, the speaker’s on as low as he can manage without muting entirely. When Mark picks up, Renjun turns his cheek into his pillow and lets the case touch his lips.

“Good evening,” he murmurs when he hears the small sounds of shifting on the other end (a soft, _“Hold on,”_ then, _“Yo.”_ ) because maybe faux class will save his ass when he tell Mark he has his thumb on his slit.

Mark laughs on the other end and Renjun tries to imagine what he’s doing—whether he has earbuds in like Renjun can afford not to, if he’s curled up in his bedroom flipping through books, if he’s on campus someplace. It feels quiet on the other end, and he can’t hear Mark’s breath if he were exercising to any degree. _“What are you up to?”_

“Sinning,” Renjun says immediately, fingers slipping back his foreskin gently as soft pinpricks light up behind his navel.

 _“Sinning?”_ Mark laughs, more a tight, confused chuckle. _“What?”_

“I’m touching myself,” he murmurs, the skin of his face warming. He looks away from the dark light of his phone to the wall across from him decorated with album and film posters. The evening light cuts strips across the colors.

 _“Then the sinning part is because I’m not there, dude,”_ Mark says, and sounds affronted enough that Renjun laughs and his phone slips. He jolts his left hand up to catch it, right still brushing the trimmed curls around his shaft and drifting over himself.

“You could come over,” he supposes, as if that wasn’t the hope despite all the nerves in his chest and neck and inside his head. _Why are you the alpha?_ some voice pings in his head.

 _I’m just me,_ he thinks to respond.

He hears Mark get up, but he talks like he’s not already moving, not already committed in a way that makes Renjun preemptively brace for the happiness of seeing him again. _“What do I get out of this?”_

The question’s there for several reasons, but the main one is: “How far are we going?”

And the truth is, “I’m up for a lot right now, so I imagine anything as soon as you’re blocking out my logic with…you.”

Mark mumbles a laugh that sounds tense, and there’s a muffled sound of something like clothes or shoes or something. Maybe Renjun’s projecting his hopes. He’s not. _“Shoes on, got my keys. Can you use your free hand to text me your address again?”_

“Hey,” Renjun says, trying not to laugh as he lifts his phone above his eyes and watches the seconds count up.

 _“Hey,”_ Mark shoots back.

“Yeah I’ll text you,” Renjun agrees, already opening up his phone.

_“I don’t have to tell you not to like—”_

“I’ll wait.”

_“Thank you.”_

* * *

Somewhat ironically, he ends up putting his dick away to brush his teeth, but he’s still feeling slow and a little like ginger and honey—prickly and warm. He’s so in his head that he startles when there’s a knock on the front door and is stupidly nervous that he’ll see someone else when he opens it.

Mark doesn’t give him a processing moment before his phone’s in the pocket of his ripped jeans and his knuckles are tilting Renjun’s chin up for a kiss.

The entrance is all shoes and two backpacks and Renjun discovering the smooth skin of Mark’s bare arms under his loose t-shirt sleeves. Mark’s hot from the dark sunshine still heating the air outside, hands dry and warm when he slides them up under Renjun’s shirt and over the ridges of his ribs.

Mark bites his bottom lip like it’s payback for something Renjun has no intention of doing, and Renjun feels something inexplicable snap and fizzle between his shoulders like a challenge.

“Are your roommates home?” Mark asks against his insulted bottom lip. He’s not wearing his glasses, and Renjun wants to land a kiss under his eye for the weird, precious way it causes him to look like a different kind of boy. 

“Not right now,” Renjun tells him, making Mark’s shirt an active inconvenience just so he can feel the curve of his deltoids in their entirely. “I don’t know when they’ll be back.”

Extracting one hand only, Renjun reaches up to tug on Mark’s messy forelock—Mark’s hair is a disaster zone, but it looks nice, so Renjun wonders if Mark does it on purpose or if he’s just this cute always. Mark bends his head for him, hands still firm on Renjun’s ribs and breath skating his collar bones from where his shirt stretches too low.

He kisses Mark’s forehead, and Mark surges from the motion, pushing, lips searching out Renjun’s pulse. They make it backwards into his room through a series of lucky mistakes and Mark whispering laughed apologies against Renjun’s skin like he’s not the best thing that’s happened to him. 

Renjun’s back hits his mattress and Mark straddles him, skin peeking out from the rips in his jeans, shirt tucked, lips shining and his scent layering beautifully like silk over Renjun’s entire body. “If we get that far,” Mark says as Renjun pulls his shirt out from the front of his jeans, “I’m going to top you.”

Laughter fills Renjun’s chest and spills out of him, stifled by the excited, nearly fretful kiss Mark presses into his lips. “Okay,” he says, though it’s only approximately close to the word itself given his position.

He gets Mark’s shirt up over his head in a break, revels in the warmth of his bare skin and the tiny bumps of imperfections down his back, exhales through his nose around Mark’s tongue stroking his own and the near whimper of shock from them both as Mark lowers his hips.

Renjun breaks the kiss, gasping through the shatter of want spreading through his skull and groin. He scratches a soft streak of lines down the back of Mark’s neck with his fingernails and Mark shudders for him, shifting to bite at the soft skin under his ear to coax him out from behind the chemicals.

“Stop hiding from me,” Mark says, and Renjun parries with, “Work harder.”

It earns him a push to his chest and a cascade of laughter wheezing out of his lungs as Mark gives him a _seriously_ devastating look. “I’m kidding!” he gasps, laughing, then craning his head back with a groan as Mark grinds down against him.

Of course, Mark gets what he wants as soon as he wrestles Renjun’s shirt off him and brushes chests with him. Like someone repressed indeed, Renjun has to bite down on a sound he has no intention of understanding or confronting at that feeling. The feeling of Mark skipping his nipples entirely and trailing down his sternum, over his navel, biting at the trail of hairs leading to his sex, hands hot against Renjun’s waist and hip…he can physically feel his own scent break free.

He catches traces of himself with each mind-blurring inhale: deep fig made brighter by cranberry. And he still hates it—it's still almost a turn-off—but Mark gives this warm, satisfied inhale, long and full, and Renjun feels dizzy.

Mark doesn't let up. He nuzzles the tent in Renjun's cut-off sweats and drops a hand to press up under the loose hem against his thigh. Renjun feels the slide of every callus until it reaches the crease of his pelvis and Mark knows, now, that he’s only got his shorts.

“Makes sense,” Mark assesses, and Renjun hides his eyes under the crook of his arm, exhaling out an embarrassed laugh.

“Just take them off,” he breathes.

“Do it yourself,” Mark says, playful and pleasantly biting, retracting his hands and swinging himself off the bed to unbutton his jeans. Renjun lets his arm fall back to watch him—the shifting muscles of his imperfect skin, the horizontal stretch marks on Mark’s lower back, his black briefs, his cute fucking ass—and totally forgets to shimmy off his shorts by the time Mark tosses his clothes to a corner of the room and turns around. “Unbelievable,” he complains, and Renjun just…drowns. Hazy, happy, dizzy as he shucks down his shorts and invites Mark between his knees.

With no warning, Mark ducks his head, wraps his fingers around Renjun's shaft, and tucks his tongue between the fold of Renjun’s foreskin and head. It strangles him, hot, so fucking sudden, and Renjun gasps something like a moan, feeling the obscene, wet slide in a place he's really never felt that before.

“I’m good at this,” Mark tells him when it’s just his lips and his fingertips sliding back the extra skin and the gleam in his eyes.

“Oh no,” is the only thing Renjun can figure to say, dumb, clumsy in his mouth. He’s already ruined.

He’s having a near goddamn fit by the time Mark takes him deep with his knuckle up soft against his perineum. Renjun has to grab the pillow he has under his head, stomach flinching for every roll of Mark’s tongue and gentle graze of his teeth.

“Fuck,” he whines, and then it creeps up on him. That weird, dizzying smell that has him fighting to keep his teeth from splitting the skin of his lip and sanity. “Come up, come up, let me touch you,” he prays into the air, and Mark’s laughing a nuzzle under his ear as Renjun slides his fingers down the scars of Mark’s lower back.

He quivers through a mad spark of arousal as Mark’s cock nudges against his own and Renjun’s middle finger slides neatly through the slick in the cut of Mark’s ass. “Damnit,” he whispers, overwhelmed and straining his arm and wrist to press against the firm, soft ring of muscle Mark’s just silently let go unnoticed for five minutes at least.

Mark sucks on the skin of his neck and shivers when Renjun dips the tip of his finger in. It’s hot and puffy with arousal and slippery with discharge and fucking his equilibrium up completely because Mark’s scent is so strong and green right up against his nose and he’s slick and Renjun is _hard._

Again, Mark laughs, this time against his throat, and drags his lips over Renjun’s mouth and against the bridge of his nose as he shifts up and lets him fit his finger inside of him. Renjun breathes against the skin of his pec. Renjun scrapes his teeth there, snagging Mark’s nipple, and revels in the throaty moan whispered out above him.

It’s easy—It’s so fucking easy to get Mark smearing into the crease of his stressed palm as he tries two fingers and works up to three in a fraction of the time of the singular occasion he tried reaching his own prostate once (hell, but kind of worth it). He’s never fucked an omega, even for his ruts, and sex education only takes some things so far.

Mark lifts up onto one palm next to Renjun’s ear, reaches back to grab his wrist, and sets Renjun’s hand on his thigh. He’s flush and sharp and handsome, hair falling into his eyes, lips parted, so fucking charming.

“Can I?” he asks with eyes so dark and shining Renjun loses what breath he has left.

“Go for it,” Renjun presses into the heavy rosemary air, and uses the hand he doesn’t have burning against Mark’s thigh to grab his cock and steady himself, sucking in his belly and swearing he won’t close his eyes.

Mark’s fingertips find Renjun’s shaft, angle him, and then all is bliss. Renjun’s mouth opens in a soundless gasp, fingers digging into Mark’s quad and his other hand drifting up his own stomach in stuttering pleasure. Mark only waits for Renjun to relearn how to breathe around the experience of being up to the hilt in _Mark._ Someone he likes so much he was terrified of fucking him.

Renjun chokes out a laugh as Mark slides up. How fucked up was that?

Much like last time, something hits him so suddenly everything shatters all at once. “I’m not wearing a condom!” he wheezes, and same as last time, Mark laughs.

Except this time it doesn’t stop—he curls over Renjun’s chest, who is still balls deep, and laughs into his skin until he’s hiccuping, and Renjun’s mess of mental horror unknots itself gently.

“I’m sorry,” Mark wheezes. “I got—I got too into it. Wh-where are your condoms?”

Trying to regain his breath, Renjun kisses the side of Mark’s head and the messy soft strands of hair there. “I’ll get them,” he says, heart still rabbiting in his chest, but it’s back to being pleasant and giddy again. “S’faster.”

Mark slides off him without complaint, though his face does scrunch in displeasure and a quiet disgruntlement. Renjun feels the loss, pulls him down for a kiss of gentle salt and citrus to make up for it, then tries to make the damn retrieval of his condoms as fast as possible. 

They’re in his closet on the shelf above the bar, and by the time he turns around with one already open with his dried fingers, Mark’s settled his head against Renjun’s pillow. Mark takes a heavy drag of air through his nose, cheek pressed up against the pillowcase and eyes dark still—again. Almost petulant. The deliberate show of irritation, playful or not, shocks arousal right through Renjun’s guts and he almost stumbles on his own floor-dwelling shorts to get to the bed.

“I’ll be fucking you to make up for ruining things,” he guesses as Mark curls his bare toes into the cheap duvet. He puts a knee on the mattress and crawls forward, already half-rolled into the condom with one hand where Mark's slick has gone slightly tacky from the wait.

Mark’s bad at holding humor in, so he presses an eye-squeezing chuckle into the pillow and lifts one leg slightly for Renjun to grab onto. “Are you going to knot me?” Mark mumbles just as Renjun’s lining up and checking over his cock to make sure he’s properly on. He can see Mark's arousal-puffy entrance, now, puckered and dark and wet as his slick drools. Renjun's mouth salivates like he has the emotional sanity to eat him out.

“That’s _your_ call,” Renjun says, ripping his eyes up to Mark's face, and waits while Mark presses his lips into a line and mulls it over. “I’ve never knotted anyone.”

Mark hums, and Renjun catches a spark of citrus in his nose like it’s a note of satisfaction. He bites his lip to stop from laughing or calling Mark cute for the slip of possessiveness. “Go ahead,” Mark says. “Why the fuck not.”

There are plenty of reasons why the fuck not, but they’ve got most of the practical concerns covered, so Renjun takes his word for it and slides back into him where he's thick and hot and the slide is so fucking smooth. Mark's anus tightens when he bottoms out like he's searching for a knot, and Renjun's hands shake as he adjusts their positions, knees shifting, Mark's eyelids fluttering and drooping in gratified pleasure.

It’s different being in control—he feels everything in time with every decision, that slow moment of readjustment, finding a rhythm, then the loss of deliberate strokes with Mark’s lean leg tilted back and his hands gripping the pillow under his head.

Renjun shakes as his blood starts to ring like metal rods being stroked, as he kisses Mark’s knee and tests his teeth right above where the hairs are soft and small and Mark’s skin is silky. Mark laughs at him from the pillows, shuddered through moans slipping through, and Renjun removes his teeth, but can’t commit to any other show of restraint.

Shifting just enough until he finds the right angle, Renjun gasps through the sounds of Mark’s groans through his teeth, his tongue. As Mark’s cock grows stiff and starts to weep, Renjun starts to feel himself ache and catch on Mark’s rim. He draws out the rhythm until Mark’s reaching for him and digging his nails into his arm and he has to stop, to sink, and stagger over the edge of his orgasm with Mark’s cock pressed up against his belly.

His sight bleaches and turns Mark into an ivory haze, shuddering, spasming under Mark’s fingernails and the smooth hug of his walls. It’s like feeling his spine slip out from his fingers, losing every bone he has in his body to almost violent wracks of pleasure.

Vision clearing slowly and only after who knows how long, Renjun fumbles for Mark’s trapped cock, still nearly blind in a dark haze but relearning the shape of his own fingers. He hears Mark, locked down by Renjun’s knot, whimper a “thank you” as Renjun palms over the head of Mark’s dick and draws every low, soft whimper out of Mark himself.

He only gets so far as feeling Mark wet his hand with cum and tasting sweet citrus salt in the air before he’s collapsing, mouth parted against the sweat of Mark’s chest, still shuddering through the aftershocks. And still anchored.

He will be for a while.

* * *

Being tugged out of his half-conscious state is as easy as Mark shifting under him and Renjun feeling the loose slip of Mark’s anus over the now barely-swollen state of his knot. “Out,” Mark whispers, and silently, Renjun heeds him, raising himself on shaking arms and sliding free.

He collapses to the side, stiff and boneless all at once. And exhausted. Mark presses a laugh to his forehead.

“How stupid was I?” Renjun mumbles, and smiles when Mark hugs his head.

“The right amount of stupid,” Mark snickers into his hair. “God, you’re so dumb,” Mark says, rubbing his face against Renjun’s scalp and dragging a sort of supernova out of Renjun’s chest.

He feels so fucking gross, but so fucking good. “Not bad?” he asks, and Mark’s not calling him out on being insecure. He just pets his hair and says, “No.”

Mark lets Renjun snuggle into his chest where they’re curled into each other on their sides, his own breathing stifled against Mark’s skin but never happier to be smothered.

They’ll take care of everything else…later. Mark can tell him how to be better, if there’s anything, later. And Renjun can maybe find the courage to ask Mark to join him in the shower to wipe off all the sweat and spunk but not scrub Mark’s scent out of his skin.

That was probably there to stay.

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/speckledsolana)   
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> 


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